According to new data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis,
personal spending lagged personal income in February, which sent
the
personal
saving rate up to 5.8%.

"It looks like they are waiting
for Spring, as they continue to bank almost all their paychecks
during this cold winter where most did not venture
outside," Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi's Chris Rupkey said.
"Remarkable really, hard to explain with savings rates averaging
4.5% September/October/November, jumping to 4.9% December, 5.5%
January and now today 5.8% in February."

"The big surprise in the spending data, though, is in services,
where real spending rose only 0.1%," Pantheon Macroeconomics
noted. "This means either that the surge in spending on utility
energy services - thanks to the cold weather - was smaller than
implied by the utility production data, or, more likely, that
spending on other services was very weak. The detailed data are
not yet available."

This puts more pressure on America to spend in the coming months.

"Unless the March spending figures are extremely robust, it will
be difficult for personal consumption to match the heady pace of
growth logged in the fourth quarter, and in turn, the overall
pace of expansion in the economy is likely to decelerate as
well," Bloomberg economists Carl Riccadonna and Josh Wright said.

Riccadonna and Wright added that the jump in saving rate "was
likely due to snowed-in shoppers more so than a decision among
households to spend less of their paychecks, so this should
unwind in the March-April data."

"Households are still flush with the money saved from the big
drop-off in gasoline prices and, with the labor market still on
fire, incomes should continue to increase at a solid pace,"
Capital Economics' Paul Ashworth said. "That provides the scope
for a big gain in consumption in the second quarter."

"One thing’s for certain, the consumer has substantial firepower
and is likely to go on quite a shopping spree in coming months as
the economy thaws and we move into Spring," Rupkey said. "There
will be a better tomorrow. The economy will pick up in the
Spring. Bet on it."